In The Pipeline:

The big, yellowed 1940s clock hanging on the garage wall works like it always has. Under the clock’s thick glass, the second hand moves fluidly, never stopping, smooth and steady. It’s a classic. “Just like she ran in the dealership,” laughs Bob Terry.

For years in Huntington Beach, Bob’s family ran one of the best-known businesses in city history, the venerable Terry Buick just off Pacific Coast Highway on Fifth Street (across from another local institution, the Surf Theater). The old clock and Bob are just about all that remains from the dealership — that is, except for Bob’s lovely wife, Dolores, who also worked at Terry Buick.

We’re talking in the Terrys’ well-kept home, just a baseball toss from Huntington Beach High School, where Bob played in the 1950s. More on that in a bit.

Bob represented Huntington Beach at Gov. Pat Brown’s Conference on Youth. He was “Citizen of the Year” here in 1981, founded the Downtown Merchants Guild, created the first-ever street fair in 1981 — and the list goes on.

Bob was born in 1937, the year his dad, Collins “Pop” Terry, opened his new showroom (he started as a Pontiac dealer in 1926). Covering the Terrys’ living room table are dozens of photos, letters, business cards and scrapbooks. The family started here in 1909 (an aunt was the first to arrive) and the Terrys clearly made a lasting impact. Relatives eventually owned many buildings and businesses in town, so much so that the area near the car dealership and family gas station was dubbed “Terryville” in the 1960s.

Bob’s childhood memories of Huntington Beach are not exactly idyllic. “I was miserable,” he laughs. “I had asthma, and in October when they’d thrash the lima bean fields — you have to remember those were a huge crop here — my asthma and allergies made me feel awful. I’d be in bed for weeks at a time.”

At 8 years old, the only child started working at the dealership, riding his bike from his house at the corner of 11th and Main streets.

“I’d sweep, do whatever my dad needed, after school. I’d pump gas and shine the teeth on those classic Buick grills. After school, Saturday, all the time through college. My father decided when I was 1 year old that I’d run the family business someday,” Bob says wistfully. “He liked being a mechanic, but he didn’t like running the business part, so that became my destiny.”

How did that sit with Bob? Not well. “In the summer of ’57, my American Legion baseball coach got me a tryout with the Milwaukee Braves. I was a 6-foot-5 pitcher, lefty, and I could throw hard, so they offered me a contract to go with the team and have a coach work with me. I took the contract home. My dad tore it up and said, ‘Baseball players are nothing but bums — you’re working for me.’ And I’m still mad at him today.”

After graduating from USC in 1960, Bob was put right to work full time — put in charge, in fact — and discovered he had a knack for selling cars. Seven years later, “Pop” passed away, leaving Bob as the youngest Buick dealer in the nation. “But all I wanted to do was play baseball,” Bob says, shaking his head slowly.

Nevertheless, the business thrived, and Bob became a fixture in Huntington Beach until the mid-1980s. It was then, during the overhaul of downtown, that the dealership was lost. Bitterness remains between Bob and city officials over how things were handled.

“Too much to go into,” he says. “That’s why I’ve been invisible for a lot of years. I co-founded Huntington Savings after the whole dealership debacle with downtown, and today I work for a mortgage company in Santa Ana. But now, with the centennial and all, I’m more in the mood to talk about my family’s history in Huntington Beach. It’s been very amicable with the Chamber of Commerce, of which I used to be on the board, and today I’ve just been thinking that there should maybe be a plaque near where the dealership used to be. That’s what’s got me talking again — not just my family history but there’s other places, so many places knocked down, and don’t you think people would like to learn about those stories? I really think it would be a good way to go.”

That is what has Bob breaking his silence — the simple yearning to have his family’s important history documented in town. I cannot agree more. Bob’s pictures alone tell a story of a family that made huge contributions to Huntington Beach. I’ve written about this before, but what better time than now to create a marker program in town to acknowledge this and other relevant family histories in town? Terry Buick sponsored countless charities here, from the Boys Club to Little League. I think it’d be good for the city to give something back to Bob and his family’s remarkable Huntington Beach legacy.

Meantime, as sure as the old Terry clock will keep time, Bob will keep organizing his photos and family history — while watching for any stray baseballs that manage to make it over from the high school and into his yard.

CHRIS EPTING is the author of 14 books, including the new “Huntington Beach Then & Now.” You can write him at [email protected] .